Friday, November 25, 2011

A TRIO OF NEW FOUND TAROT CARDS

All three of the below Found Tarot cards -- digital photos of mine in which only after the fact do I see a card -- are really old photos. But I've had a fondness for them since first seeing them on my computer. Over the two-plus years since their taking and the "discovery" of a Tarot card in each, I've occasionally fussed with them trying to improve the cropping, color, focus, etc. I decided that I'd better post them now or I'd never post them. :-)

By the way, I have posted others pictures in which I see the same cards below. Many cards I post here have more than one possible version posted for them. Should I ever complete this deck and wish to produce a physical copy, I can pare down to one photo per card.

Here's a possible Eight of Disks (8P):

And here's a possible Tower (XVI):

Last is a possible Judgment (XX):

OK, I'd briefly wondered before I started choosing cards to post today if they would suggest a reading, which they frequently do. And seeing them up now in a draft view on blogger, yes, they definitely do. And also definitely not a light reading ... LOL! ... when are the readings for myself ever light? Not for this Saturnine Capricorn. Here goes:

This Found Tarot 8P suggests the vision I've had for a new life, a new path. And what stands between, if you will, me and that life is a lot of hard work. Which I have accepted and attempted to do, but somehow not accomplished, no matter how hard I struggle. In light of what I see below in the other two cards, there's a more traditional meaning to this card that can be applicable here. In the Rider/Waite/Smith version of the 8P the person is literally "making pentacles." (Sitting at a work bench with an awl and hammer working on a pentacle, with 7 others around him.) A Tarot teacher I had decades ago said this was another way of saying "doing spiritual work." Which is one way to understand the sort of life challenge and struggle I see here.

This Found Tarot XVI suggests a fall. But almost more a "raining upon" from elsewhere, of both shadows and light. That instead of focusing on not getting ahead, I need to be opening to what falls in grace. I'm not sure I can make this clear, but to recognize how little we ultimately control in our lives. And not to be so focused on what we fail at or don't get that it takes a two-by-four over our heads to open us to what rains down in grace at all times. I've even begun to wonder how much we can ever really take credit for having accomplished. How much might just be chance. Which may simply be another word for grace.

And this Found Tarot XX suggests that a new life does indeed call even as it opens. It's always beginning, unmissable, unmistakable, whenever I stay in the moment. This card also suggests accepting the impermanent nature of being in the moment (at least for me). It's not a steady state, but one I wander in and out of. A way of being that is illusive and ephemeral (again, at least for me) but one that always blooms again when I most need it. If sometimes only after a series of two-by-fours over the head, as in a more negative Tower (XVI) experience.

I don't offer these "interpretations" above as anything more than what I obviously needed to hear today. Though they are not totally unconnected to the more accepted and usual meanings attributed to these three cards.

2 Comments:

I love these found Tarot cards, especially the Eight of Disks! And I found your reading of these cards very insightful. Thanks for the illuminating post, Roswila! I'll be thinking all day about coconuts falling from the palm Tower. That's how remote islands become lush, as I understand it -- coconuts fall and roll and float away, then wash ashore somewhere unlikely and take root.

Omigosh! Falling coconuts! Never thought of that possibility for a Tower experience. Hard nut on a hard noggin. Better than a two-by-four over the head any day and a more likely scenario under a Palm tree. LOL ....

PLEASE NOTE: All photos on this blog designated as cards in Roswila's "The Found Tarot" are by Patricia Kelly (a/k/a Roswila)

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"...No student will ever exhaust the possibilities of this extraordinary symbolic alphabet, any more than one person can exhaust the possibilities of a language." BOTA Tarot Course

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"Tarot cards are like people. We get to know them more or less well, but never completely. And like people, they change over time and with experience of them. This is not to say we can't really know a card. Anymore than one would say one doesn't really know one's best friend or mate or lover. Simply that with these cards we form, as with people, many-faceted, living, changing relationships." Roswila

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MY TAROT BACKGROUND: I've studied, collected and taught Tarot for almost 40 years, collecting many, many notes about meanings, approaches, and layouts I've seen or developed for the cards. I do not usually post the more traditional meanings as I learned them, but only those that are -- at least to me -- less common as they occur to me (many with a decidedly psychological bent). I ultimately offer Tarot meaning and other Tarot-related posts hoping to contribute to the rich and constantly evolving universe of The Tarot. But even more so, to encourage you to explore the wide variety of Tarot art, and maybe even to learn to read the Tarot for yourself and reap its rich rewards.

IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATION TO BEGINNERS: What I share here is not intended to be a comprehensive look at any one card. These simply are what I consider to be somewhat less usual ways I've come across of relating to a card, both in terms of image and meanings. Books and web sites abound for the more traditional and common meanings of the Tarot cards. If you are a beginner, I highly encourage you try some of the links listed below, and as resources at the bottoms of posts here. Tarot is an extremely diverse and exciting field.

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"...faced with silent pictures destined to make him think, his task consists in discovering in them the things that are hidden within himself." – Oswald Wirth in "Tarot of the Magicians"

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"I like the tarot because it works like poetry and because you don’t really have to ‘believe in’ anything. It’s there to be used. The symbols are remarkably durable and beautiful; they float out to encompass all kinds of meanings.” – Alice Notley, poet

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"The Tarot is an ever progressing rendition or map of the inner structures of consciousness. It is a language in itself, a universal language, and its individual cards form a precise alphabet spelled out again and again in new terms to awaken those who seek to know the Self." -- John Starr Cooke, designer/channeler of The New Tarot for the Aquarian Age.

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"I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affection and the truth of the Imagination." John Keats, poet

About Me

Retired, I'm grateful to indulge in daily blogging, taking digital photos, writing poetry every day, and other creative efforts as the spirit grabs me. I also enjoy reading my poems and sometimes improvising on one of the musical instruments in my collection (e.g. didjeridu or kalimba), in our retirement community's regular Talent Shows. And I also occasionally play a role in one of
our radio plays, written by a resident,
and read on stage as if an actual radio show.

"Ganesh dances joyfully,
each step out of now into now again;
each footprint filling to overflowing with kindness.
Remover of Obstacles, clear me out of my own way;
teach me how to dance lightly through life,
how to spill over with love."